


The Christmas Shenanigans of Finn McKay

by sheafrotherdon



Series: A Farm in Iowa 'Verse [14]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-22
Updated: 2006-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-11 22:03:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/117592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn is two, and John is at his mercy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Christmas Shenanigans of Finn McKay

**Author's Note:**

> Please ready the insulin before reading this. I swear by all that is seasonal, this is all Siriaeve's fault.

There was once a time, in a dusty corner of a country best forgotten, when John Sheppard drank his body-weight in cheap Taiwanese beer and woke up with a rolling stomach, a headache the size of Montana, and a pair of white briefs that were definitely not his own perched upon his head. It was, he thought at the time, the worst morning-after experience of his fairly short life, especially once he found the tattoo.

It's not remotely comforting to discover that the morning after a birthday party for Finn McKay (aged two) is worse: infinitely more garish, smelling of frosting, and accompanied by the kind of exhaustion that makes it seem imperative he eat coffee beans straight from the bag. He had no idea such morning afters could exist but here one is, stamping its feet and grinning in his face and ensuring he gets wrapping paper jammed between his toes every time he tries to move from one room to the next. He slumps at the kitchen table, moans into his coffee, and wishes for something that isn't quite death.

"Baffa?"

He turns his head and blinks at his son.

Finn sticks out a hand, clasped into a fist.

"What's that?"

"Keepit f'me."

John takes a deep breath to fortify himself and pushes himself upright in his chair. The last time they'd played this game, he'd found himself with a fist full of earthworm guts. "Okay." He opens his hand and lets Finn drop his bounty onto his palm.

Finn drops a penny before turning to shuffle back into the living room as fast as his footy pajamas allow.

"Huh." John says, staring at the coin.

Finn comes shuffling back. "Here Baffa," he singsongs, offering a grime-covered quarter.

John stretches out his hand again, accepting the prize. "Where'd you get this, buddy?"

"Inna dirt," Finn offers, already heading back into the living room.

John blinks. Well, that covers most places, he supposes.

A few moments later Finn returns, this time with a nickel that he gives to John before tugging at his jeans – the international Finn McKay semaphore for 'lift me up now!' John hauls him into his lap, too bamboozled to do anything but comply.

"Monies," Finn says proudly.

"Thirty-one cents," John agrees. "Pretty rich."

Finn nods, comfortably nestled against John's chest. "Some was unner couch."

John quirks a respectful eyebrow. "Very enterprising."

"Enner – "

"Enterprising. Means you're um – smart."

Finn beams and fist-pumps his hands. (His other dad has already impressed upon him how desirable a quality this is.) "Smart!"

John laughs softly. "You want me to hold onto these for you?"

Finn shakes his head.

John nods thoughtfully. "So what are we doing with your money?"

"Daddy needs kissmass p'esents," Finn says, looking up at John with wide blue eyes.

John blinks. "Christmas presents?"

Finn nods. "We go shops."

John feels his heart do something dangerous and probably illegal that involves sharp drops and gravity defying rolls that he'd last experienced at 7Gs. He hugs his son close, nosing at his hair. "Sure. You wanna go today?"

"Now!" Finn says enthusiastically.

"Breakfast first."

Finn chews his lip. "Okay. Some juice."

John stands with Finn on his hip, and tries to work out how long he can spin out breakfast to maximize his window of coffee ingestion. The mall, two weeks before Christmas, with a toddler in tow is going to beat all previous morning-after experiences into a bloody, feeble pulp.

*****

At two, Finn's solidly opinionated about his sartorial choices, which is how he ends up strapped into his car seat wearing jeans, sneakers, a yellow sock, a blue sock, a lime-green sweatshirt with a plane on the front, a bright red and orange scarf, and a hat that has ears like Pooh bear. He beams at John. "Shops!" he says, flinging out his arms.

"Got your money?" John asks, unbuckling him.

Finn clumsily pats his pocket. "Monies," he says as John hauls him out and sets him on his hip.

"Cart or carrying?"

"Carrying!"

John narrowly avoids rolling his eyes. "Fair enough. Where first?"

"Playground."

"We're supposed to be shopping for Daddy."

"PLAYGROUND!"

John blinks, Finn having found exactly the right frequency at which to cause his parental guidance systems to explode. "Uh, sure," he says, heading into the mall. Finn wriggles with satisfaction and John sighs – no doubt this slip in the household rule of 'don't give in to terrorists or offspring' will result in Finn doing drugs before he's 12 and dropping out of junior high to hitch-hike North in search of his authentic Canadian self.

Or something.

There's a Starbucks en route to the indoor play area, and John insists they stop, no matter the hullabaloo kicked up by Finn McKay and his thirty-one cents. He feels better prepared for the paternal hover with a cup of coffee in his hand – a move he's almost perfected, staying on the outside of the play area, letting Finn run riot over the insane, soft-shaped obstacle-course someone thought would be smart to put in a mall, ready to swoop in should head injuries threaten. Finn squeals with a horrifying level of energy, swings, crawls, leaps and slides, and eventually flings himself at his Baffa's legs, panting and grinning like a loon.

"I's _tired_ ," he huffs pleasantly.

"Ready to shop now?" John asks.

"Hokay!" Finn says, thrusting coat and hat at John and lifting his hand to be held. "How many p'esents, Baffa?"

John frowns as he tries to untangle the sentence. "How many – . . . presents will your money buy?"

Finn nods emphatically as they wander into Barnes and Noble.

"Three," John says, deciding on the number arbitrarily.

"Three?"

"Three." John holds up his spare hand and shows Finn three fingers. "One, two, three."

Finn copies him with his own free hand. "THREE!"

John drinks his coffee and thinks fond, desperate thoughts of naps and bed and punishing Rodney for having the audacity to work a steady job.

******

Barnes and Noble yields no suitable present in Finn's eyes – a fate suffered by Old Navy, Footlocker, the Hawkeye Store, and the Gap. Finn stands in the doorway of the Yankee Candle Company, throws back his head and yells "STINKY POO," and it's an uphill battle for John to persuade Finn that Victoria's Secret doesn't stock Daddy underwear, especially since the thongs in the window are distractingly sparkly.

Panera offers the day's first find, Finn picking out a cinnamon-raisin bagel with the confidence of a child who knows his father's snacking habits, and John slipping two stealth dollar bills across the counter so his kid will never realize the thing cost more than a nickel. There's nothing at the music store or the shoe emporium, and while Finn pauses for a long time in the doorway of the Tempur-Pedic mattress shop, John convinces him Target has better gifts.

"But Daddy likes sleeps."

"This Daddy too," John says, stifling a yawn, Finn settled on his hip.

Finn hums thoughtfully, roots around in his left nostril, and pulls out an impressive-sized booger. "Snot!" he says, pleased with himself, and John groans, rifling his pocket for tissues he knows aren't there. He sighs, yanks his t-shirt out of his jeans, and wipes up Finn's hand with the hem. Finn laughs uproariously. "Baffa got boogers!" he cackles, head-butting John's shoulder as he giggles.

"How about you keep your snot in your nose?" John asks.

"Was itching," Finn grins.

"You have itchy boogers?"

Finn laughs loudly. "HAVE ITCHY BOOGERS," he yells as they walk into Target.

"Jesus," John murmurs weakly, feeling every eye on him.

Finn looks at him. "Baby Jesus have boogers?" he asks, fascinated.

By John's reckoning, that moment constitutes the four millionth and seventy-second time he's thought to himself _I am so far in over my head_.

*****

Finn selects a dog-and-cat-wearing-Santa-hats Christmas ornament as Rodney's second gift, and rounds things out with a Tonka truck that can actually move dirt. John quibbles with neither choice, suggests they buy some wrapping paper, and manfully holds back a wince when Finn picks out something in turquoise and purple with a bag of bright red bows to match. Finn solemnly hands over his remaining twenty-six cents to the sales assistant while John's putting the majority of the cost on his debit card, and after they've stowed everything in the truck of the car and made it out of the parking lot without running down other shoppers, they stop at McDonalds for chicken McNuggets in defiance of every law of parenting laid down by Rodney "Hostess Cupcake" McKay.

John's in bed before Finn that evening, leaving the fourteen consecutive readings of _The Velveteen Rabbit_ to Rodney and crawling under the covers beaten, worn down, and all in all a shell of a man.

"You okay?" Rodney asks much later, sliding into bed and inching up against John's side.

"Christmas shopping," John sighs, rolling over to bury his face in Rodney's armpit. "Horrible. Horrible. Hoards. Son of _death_."

Rodney pats his head. "Did you pick up anything for Jeannie and the kids?"

John makes a strangled, pitiful noise.

"We could all go on Saturday."

John whimpers.

Rodney strokes his back. "Or I could take Finn while you find a tree?"

"I _love_ you," John whispers, and with Rodney a trusty furnace beside him, he's asleep before he takes his very next breath.

*****

Come Christmas morning, there are several different wrapping styles on display beneath the McKay-Sheppard tree. There's Laura Cadman's Overachiever approach – soft green wrapping paper, brown velvet ribbon, and pinecones threaded into the knot of each bow. Jeannie's gifts demonstrate the art of Practical But Cute – colorful paper splattered with cheery snowmen; big white bows on every box. There are corporate wrapping jobs – Restoration Hardware, Amazon, Bacon-of-the-Month – and fair attempts at masking gifts with too much tape from both Rodney and John. Yet the focal points are, without a doubt, three enormous packages of indiscriminate shape and size, bundled in turquoise and purple paper, covered in several bows a-piece, and liberally smeared with green and yellow Play-Doh. Finn beams when Rodney nudges one with a sock-clad toe.

"Who are these for?" Rodney asks.

"YOU!" Finn shouts, bouncing on the balls of his feet, and John thinks he's probably never been so goddamn touched by anything in his life as he is when Rodney unwraps his cold, stale bagel and eats it as if it's the best thing in the world.

The floor's covered in shredded paper, and Rodney's truck is all set to give rides to Helmut the Sloth (a beanie toy gifted to Finn by Jacob, one of his circle of daycare friends) when Rodney nudges Finn, wiggles an eyebrow, and Finn claps his hands to his mouth with glee. " _Now_ , Daddy?" he asks.

"I think so. You need help?" Rodney asks.

Finn shakes his head and runs off into the kitchen, tugging on the pantry door and disappearing inside.

John quirks an eyebrow. "What are you up to?"

"Oh . . . nothing," Rodney says airily.

John snorts.

"What, you think you're the only one who goes on secret shopping expeditions?" Rodney asks. "Although _I_ managed to steer our child away from purple and turquoise paper – were you trying to blind us, was that your plan?"

John's cutting response is interrupted by Finn staggering back into the room, carrying a long flat box. "Oooof. Baffa," he says, hurling the box at John's lap as though trying to ensure no future siblings will spring from his father's loins.

John makes a deft catch, and quickly tears silver paper from the box, loosens the lid and peers inside.

"I MADE IT," Finn shouts, as if there's any doubt that the painting inside – a finger-etched, acrylic-paint, abstract expression of two-year-old joy – could have come from anyone else.

John pulls it out, runs a hand over the wooden frame. "Oh, buddy," he says, low.

Finn scrambles into John's lap. "Look, see, you an' me an' Daddy an' farm." He points to various globs of color that show no recognizable relationship to anything in real life, but John smacks a kiss to Finn's forehead just the same.

"It's fantastic," he whispers.

"An' Daddy tookit to shop! Shop with . . . " Finn points excitedly at the frame, his limited vocabulary failing him.

John looks up, meeting Rodney's smile with one of his own. "Thank you," he says, warm and just a fraction off-kilter, flattened by the force of feeling that's stamping itself on his heart.

Rodney leans in and kisses him. "Happy Christmas," he says as he pulls away, looking unbearably smug.

"HAP' KISSMASS!" Finn agrees, all but blowing out John's eardrums, and if his yelling brings on a tickle-fight of the very first water, no one seems the slightest bit displeased.


End file.
